Provision linking school dollars to rebates from fund that helps poor Texans could kill budget bill passed by Senate

House Appropriations Vice Chairman Sylvester Turner is as mad as I’ve seen him all session, calling “disingenuous” a move by Senate Finance Chairman Tommy Williams to tie $200 million in education funding to a measure that drains a fund for poor people.

HB 1025, one of the carefully negotiated pieces of legislation designed to help pass the budget, got some smooth sailing in the Texas Senate last night – with all but three senators (all GOP) voting for it.

This morning, that ship hit the rocks when Democrats realized that the version passed by the Senate was not the agreed upon bill – in that it ties $200 million in Foundation School Program money to the passage of a tax relief bill that rebates the bulk of the state’s System Benefit Fund, which helps financially strapped people with their electricity bills.

Stay tuned for more details - but Chairman Jim Pitts just told reporters that the House would reject what the Senate passed last night and go to conference.

Of course if the provision doesn’t get stripped in conference, the bill could go down because it requires 2/3 majority – and according to Turner and other Ds, the Dems are hanging together on this.

Asked whether the Senate Democrats were asleep at the wheel when it passed last night with no objection and, in fact, strong praise from Sen. Wendy Davis, D-Fort Worth, Turner simply said: “The Senate is the Senate. The House is the House.”

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